"Poor old man!" said she. "I wish I had a fortune to give you, so you wouldn't have to go." The words were fairly cooing, but the tone was still harsh. However, Harry brightened. He regarded this lovely, blooming creature and inhaled again the odor of dinner, and reflected with a sense of gratitude upon his mercies. Harry had a grateful heart, and was always ready to blame himself. "Oh, I should be lost, go all to pieces, if I quit work," he said, laughing. "If I were left a fortune, I should land in an insane asylum very likely, or take to drink. No, dear, you can't teach such an old bird new tricks; he's been in one tree too long, summer and winter." "Well, after all, you have not got to go out to-day," remarked Ida, skilfully, and Harry again stretched himself with a sense of present comfort. "That is so, dear," he said. "I have something you like for supper, too," said Ida, "and I think George Adams and Louisa may drop in and we can have some music." Harry brightened still more. He liked George Adams, and the wife had more than a talent for music, of which Harry was passionately fond. She played wonderfully on Ida's well-tuned grand piano. "I thought you might like it," said Ida, "and I spoke to Louisa as I was coming out of church." "You were very kind, sweetheart," Harry said, and again a flood of gratitude seemed to sweeten life for the man. Ida took another step in her sequence. "I think Maria had better stay up, if they do come," said she. "She enjoys music so much. She can keep on her new gown. Maria is so careful of her gowns that I never feel any anxiety about her soiling them." "She is just like--" began Harry, then he stopped. He had been about to state that Maria was just like her mother in that respect, but he had remembered suddenly that he was speaking to his second wife. However, Ida finished his remark for him with perfect good-nature. She had not the slightest jealousy of Harry's first wife, only a sort of contempt, that she had gotten so little where she herself had gotten so much. "Maria's own mother was very particular, wasn't she, dear?" she said. "Very," replied Harry. "Maria takes it from her, without any doubt," Ida said, smoothly. "She looked so sweet in that new gown to-day, that I would like to have the Adamses see her without her coat to-night; and Maria looks even prettier without her hat, too, her hair grows so prettily on her temples. Maria grows lovelier every day, it seems to me. I don't know how many I saw looking at her in church this morning." "Yes, she is going to be pretty, I guess," said Harry, and again his very soul seemed warm and light with pleasure and gratitude. "She _is_ pretty," said Ida, conclusively. "She is at the awkward age, too. But there is no awkwardness about Maria. She is like a little fairy."